Russian Hack Conspiracy Theory Unraveling

[BjornP]

In the post you quoted, I said that I thought it was possible Russia was responsible. But excuse me if I don't immediately believe a bunch of old men talking about "cyber-this, and cyber-that," when they are asserting things without proof. Your comments regarding me acting like "America is always wrong" or "Russia is a victim of white privilege" were completely uncalled for.

I do not hate my country. I just am not going to accept the words of career bureaucrats who have been trying to morph this nation into an Eastern European quasi-fascist nanny-state for the past 20 years.

Oh, I agree that they shouldn't have gone out in the media themselves. They should spend their time developing strategies to counteract the growing influence of Russian propaganda and conspiracy sites, instead.

And I'm sure you don't hate your country. But "the US/West is the center of the world and thus the cause of all that's wrong in the world"-meme has been so dominant for so long on both sides of the Atlantic, that it was just a matter of time before it moved from the left, to the center and finally to the right. It'd be weird if you weren't affected by it. Let me try a thought excercise to make my point:

Which is more wrong:

A: That the US tries to influence Russian politics.
B: That Russia tries to influence US politics.
C: Both are wrong.
D: It's wrong if the other guy doesn't do it, but right if the other guy does do it.

The only correct answer, no matter the context is always B. Also applies to China, North Korea or any other country which wants the US to lose power and influence in the world. And why? Because. You. Are. Not. Russia. Your interests supercede that of another country, always. Doesn't matter that they would do the same, or even that they are doing the same. You may not subscribe to the way of thinking I'm criticizing. Many do, though. They're the ones who think, "Well, we do the same thing to them" is a legitimate, valid or relevant counter-argument.

[TheReal_ND]

I reject the premise. If exposing the truth is seen as "influencing," then I want more influencing. If it happens to come from Pakistan it makes no difference.

Also, I maintain that if Putin decided the outcome of the election that is a net gain because both Trump and Putin are great men. You can tell by the enemies they make.

[Smitty-48]

Agreed, I'm certainly not seeing the a to b of the Russians having any effect on the election, but I have no problem with the Russians doing damage to the American liberal agenda, by all means, I just don't think they had any effect, the American liberal agenda brought itself down, by overplaying the nanny state hand.

[BjornP]

If exposing the truth is seen as "influencing,..

It isn't.

(Well, not by me, anyway)

[TheReal_ND]

If exposing the truth is seen as "influencing,..

It isn't.

I'm sorry what? What are we having a multi page thread about then?

[ssu]

I was watching it in real time, the Russians had no effect on the election, the main Clinton embarassment was all centered around her erasing her emails because she was in the soup over classified documents on her personal server, but thanks to the liberal media, anything the Russians would have been saying, was entirely supressed, the Democrats are shireking about Podesta's server emails getting outed, but that shit got no airplay at all, liberal media to the rescue.

First was the DNC hacks which lead to the resignation of that DNC official Debbie Wasserman Shultz and later few more. Then there was Trump asking about Russia finding Hillary's missing emails, which Trump himself made the media to focus on the subject, and naturally the Clinton campaign to use Trump's sarcasm later.

We were on the DCF in real time, nobody was saying "hey, the Russians are stealing the election", this is all just coming up now,
after the Democrats lost

Nope, wrong. The Russia accusations came in during the campaign. And also fears that Russia might rig the election, which didn't happen.

Now I'll leave aside Trump admiration of Putin here. It's funny how one President praises somebody from another country so much, but anyway. And then you are forgetting Paul Manafort and that Trump changed views on Ukraine after hiring Manafort, then the resignation of Paul Manafort after his ties to pro-Russian Yanukovich (and some income he there hadn't reported to the US officials) became public, and then the small but interesting change By the Trump campaign of GOP policy towards Ukraine (not to give the arms), see Trump Campaign Changed Ukraine Platform, Lied About It.

because they are desperate, and humilaited, and grasping at anything they can to try to hit back at Trump, after he schooled them in front of the whole world, Putin was never an issue

Again wrong. The Putin-Trump love affair was quite on back then. Don't you remember Puppet- I'm no Puppet thing?


Perhaps this is the reason you simply cannot look past the elections here and act as if the elections are ongoing and think there's a giant Intelligence Service conspiracy here. Because evil Hillary said it.

[TheReal_ND]

Tldr some Scandinavians are still attempting to tar my president and Putin in one stroke.

Not bad enough they are anti-American but they also want us to rattle our sabres for them like some kind of golem

[Smitty-48]

I don't think Hillary is evil, I just think she turned out to be a useless dipshit and so she got beat like a rented mule, I don't buy that the Russians had anything to do with it, but the fact that the Democrats are such a bunch of useless dipshits to claim that the Russians are the reason they lost, and that they would have the CIA come out to be their shills to try to propagate this silly nonsense, just confirms that the Americans were right to reject these pathetic Democrat losers accross the board, they're too pathetic to lead America, MAGA was the right choice.

As for Putin, my only complaint about Putin is that he's lazy, he needs to step his game up, to truly become a Mr. Ivan of yore, quit pussyfooting around and do something already, Crimea was like three years ago, let's go, Ivan, all the way to the Dnieper, I dig the whole bringing 1st Guards Tank Army back, but that needs to get loaded up with eight Divisions, and then launched into an encirclement operation suprise attack on the Ukrainians, I'm get bored over here, with all this Syria shit, Syria is Zzzzzzzzz....

[ssu]

Agreed, I'm certainly not seeing the a to b of the Russians having any effect on the election, but I have no problem with the Russians doing damage to the American liberal agenda, by all means, I just don't think they had any effect, the American liberal agenda brought itself down, by overplaying the nanny state hand.

I would agree that the Russian information campaign didn't have much effect on the outcome and actually might have been more harmful in the long run for Trump than a beneficial. Which might be just perfect for Putin, btw.

Yet to outright deny that there was an active Russian campaign is a similar illogical denial as is that Hillary's election win was stolen by Putin. That's my point. And Russia will continue to do these operations, because it has gotten such "success". When Americans start believing more RT and looking for the truth there, how could I say it politely... Hopefully it doesn't go to that.

Now if Trump will choose outright appeasement with Russia, then this whole thing blows up. But then again candidates and presidents differ a lot. So I do have an open mind to Trump. At least after looking at his administration, which looks to have some pretty good picks.

Scandinavians are still attempting to tar my president and Putin in one stroke.

Not bad enough they are anti-American but they also want us to rattle our sabres for them like some kind of golem

Putin the Pro-American?

Well, Putin isn't your friend. Putin is the President of Russia.

[BjornP]

If exposing the truth is seen as "influencing,..

It isn't.

I'm sorry what? What are we having a multi page thread about then?

To start with:

Selective exposure of facts is not exposure of truth. If I, in the hope of making a husband hurt his wife, expose a series of selected facts to the married man about his wife that make the husband believe she is unfaithful, while omitting other facts that would instead validate that she was faithful, then I am being untruthful using facts. I would be influencing the husband toward an agenda of my own using the facts, while hiding the truth.

Aside from that, and more importantly. One may or may not have a motive to exposing a particular truth. It doesn't automatically follow that - even if RT is in the business of news rather than being the mouthpiece of an anti-democratic regime - that the motive of exposing a particular story is part of the agenda of undermining popular support for the US government and/or system and NATO.

As I pointed out back during the election season: That the Russian government wanted Trump, and no matter how hard they campaigned for it using RT or Sputnik, does not invalidate the choice of Trump as president. That is the narrative that the losing Democrats seemed to have tried for a long time. It's a stupid narrative, a stupid rationale, and it does them no favors at all. Guilt by association is only a valid argument if the association is clear and direct. Democrats stretched it beyond reason and into an outright fallacy.